The Box is a Bore

we're constantly perceiving each other and it is killing our joie de vivre

On a recent and very New York Friday night, I attended a gallery opening on the Lower East Side. The work was interesting, complex, feminine, immaculate, and is on view through June 6. (In the interest of disclosure– the artist is a friend of mine. However, I do not pick my friends based on how good they are at their jobs! If you find yourself in the neighborhood, it’s worth seeing the craftsmanship up close.) We admired the art and drank boxed wine and congratulated Caro, beautiful, blushing, overly modest given the scale of the work. It was a bit too chilly to stand in the street and talk but we stood in the street and talked because art world types smoke Virginia Slims and Marlboro Golds and there wasn’t room for all of us in the gallery.

After the gallery closed for the evening eight or nine of us went across the street and had martinis with snap peas in them (also a lot of lime) and french fries and no other food at all. The conversation was alternately light and emotional in the pleasant way conversations can be when everyone is buzzy and comfortable. Afterward, most of the group decided to go dancing in Bushwick but I had to be up early and so a friend and I decided to sit and talk and have a glass of wine somewhere quiet nearby. A pleasant, low-key New York night!

And then we walked by The Box. Here is something you may not know about me: I love the club. I love dressing up and scene-y crowds and strict doors and overpriced two-ingredient mixed drinks and low lighting and loud music. If you are unfamiliar with The Box, it is an expensive nightclub covered in velvet whose reputation trades on an infamous nightly burlesque show which is extremely graphic. (A decade ago, there used to be a very short man with a very large penis who would pee on the crowd almost every night. Now, the show is less… interactive, but involves a lot of fake menstrual blood and fecal matter. Often, there is fire! I am an absolute sucker for pyrotechnics.) Nearly always very graphic but very rarely sexy. It is a show that aims for edge and shock over an awakening of carnality. But The Box is sexy- the show creates an atmosphere that is social and dangerous and the upstairs tables have curtains that close all the way around each velvet banquette allowing patrons what is probably too much privacy. The Box radiates with the energy of loaded eye contact with a stranger across the bar. The Box is unique and outrageous and so, even though my friend and I were not exactly in nightclub attire, as we walked by I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I dunno, should we try?”

“Why not?” They let us in and my friend bought us a pair of vodka sodas and we wandered to the dance floor, where no one was dancing.

if you saw someone wearing this at The Box it was (almost certainly!) me

The Box is sexy. Or, at least, The Box was sexy the other two dozen or so times I’ve visited over the last decade and a half. It is certainly possible that I have changed– I am, for the first time in my life, truly at peace– but I am certain I haven’t changed enough, that I cannot change enough, to be immune to energy in a room. I looked around and then turned to my friend,

“This is weird, right?”

“Very.” Everyone looked, very technically, perfect. The men at tables were largely in the banker off-duty uniform of a custom-fitted white or blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up at least enough to show off their tanks and royal oaks. The other men wore jeans and tee shirts, sometimes with a third open shirt over the top (this is in style in New York right now, I also don’t really understand it.) The women were in mini dresses and mini skirts, slicked hair, clear skin and smoky eyes. Glossed lips and breasts pressed up. Everyone looked beautiful, smooth and glossy and attractive and largely unsmiling. There was a stiffness in the room, even after a woman pushed what appeared to be a dozen chicken eggs out of her vagina on stage. Social media or the number of times we see ourselves in the mirror every day or the expectations of others or the impending doom in the world has created an environment where the safest thing to be is Not Wrong. Which is different from being right and often diametrically opposed to being yourself.

“They’re beautiful but they’re sexless.”

“A club full of boomers.” I know, I know. Two thirty-five-year-olds in the club critiquing the people who belong there! But we were far from the oldest and far from the only people who noticed, a room full of people is the energy of those people. I was also twenty-three and self-conscious at The Box. I understand the desire to fit in, get on line, do as everyone is doing. I am not critiquing any person in particular! We are in a cultural moment where trend cycles are fast, retribution is swift, and people feel extremely comfortable keeping others in line. And to a degree, that has its merits. Cohesion has a real societal function! But too much costs us something, we have lost a lot of the fun, joy, and learning that comes with wearing the wrong thing and kissing the wrong boy. The coolest person you know is not particularly aware of what anyone else is doing. That freedom is at the core of what makes them cool. This doesn’t feel generational to me, it feels like a part of American culture at this moment. We have all starched our shirts and tied our hair back tastefully. We all look beautiful and exactly like each other.

…

The next morning, I was telling my sister (another girl from Waco, charmed by The Box!) about the evening.

“I’ve noticed it too, we’re all so aware of ourselves and each other.” I picked up the December 1995 issue of Playboy from a stack of vintage editions of the rag, purchased as kitschy decor rather than reading material.

“Seduction Made Easy: Is Our Apartment Sexy?” I read from the cover, “let’s find out.” Instead, I turned to the advice column. I had never read a Playboy before. I am not, generally, interested in anything called “entertainment for men” though I was aware of the magazine’s historic reputation for publishing important fiction, opinion pieces, and interviews. I assumed the advice column would offend my modern sensibilities but that it would also have a sort of vintage charm. Not so! On either count. The opening questions were about how to perform oral sex, on both men and women, and the answers were raunchy but generally advised enthusiasm and attentiveness. I cannot argue! And then…

From page 42, The Playboy Advisor (condensed, emphasis my own):

“My fiancee is considering breast augmentation as a wedding gift to me. But all the negative publicity makes me wonder if implants are safe.- H.A., Washington, D.C.

The most recent study on the subject, like others before it, found little to indicate that implants are unsafe. The controversy you’ve heard about centers on silicone gel implants, which were taken off the market three years ago after the FDA raised concerns that the devices might be associated with connective tissue diseases … That said, we would discourage any woman from getting cosmetic implants unless they’re something she desires for herself. If your fiancee wants larger breasts solely to please you, tell her she already does.”

said Playboy

I was stunned. It is the advice I would hope my boyfriend or brother or sister’s husband would receive. In 1995, a man who intended to look at Farrah Fawcett’s nipples and found himself reading would stumble upon advice that nudged him toward empathy and respect, some off color but largely inoffensive (and, honestly quite funny) jokes, and a stunningly good editorial lambasting the religious right for their criticisms of the children’s broadcasting on PBS. I read the whole issue. And then I opened my phone and found pages of impassioned debate about whether a mini-dress Olivia Rodrigo wore was punk or courting pedophiles. (For the record, I think it was a pretty and appropriate dress, though not exactly punk. A bit too literal and self-aware for that.)

We are living in a world where other people’s opinions, ideas, and criticism are so available they are nearly impossible to avoid. I have been wrong in public more than once. Even when criticism is fair, we often see it delivered in a rude and overwhelming pile-on. I understand the desire to avoid judgement. It is an impulse I often have! But sometimes safety keeps us from self-discovery (it should go without saying that my point is about things like clothes and dating and haircuts, not hateful thoughts and actions). Being Not Wrong keeps us from having fun. This is my only advice: when I learned to look at others with curiosity and sincere interest rather than defensive judgement, I assumed people were looking at me the same way. Perhaps a year from now I’ll look back on the daytime metallics phase I am in with horror and the knowledge it was fun while I was in it.

Let your eye makeup smudge and wink at a person who is completely wrong for you.

I love you,

Hannah Stella

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